Knit On

Hello! I'm posting this from my new laptop, which is back in good working order. Hurray!

Yes, it's purple!

 I called Dell tech support and a really nice fellow with a good sense of humor helped me fix it so it works again. Let me impart a bit of wisdom:

Before installing old software, make sure it's Windows 7 compatible.

There are web sites that you can visit to get that kind of information. I didn't think it was an issue because it never had been before. However, the new computers are 64 bit, which is very different from all the older models. Apparently when I installed the software that came with my camera, it was not compatible and brought the system down. We thought the hard drive was bad because Sweet Hubby ran some diagnostic software (that came installed on my laptop) and we got messages about corrupted files and bad disk errors. Thankfully, the messages greatly exaggerated.

The solution to the problem was to reset my laptop back to what it was when it left the factory. It meant I lost everything I'd installed, but that was okay. I could redo it all again and this time do it right.

So, with this post I'm hoping life will continue to improve. The last 3 weeks have been no fun. Besides the death of Chet and my laptop, other bad things happened too. For one thing, my best friend moved to California (sigh). I miss her something awful. But we have Facebook and txt mail which makes keeping in touch easy. We've both got web cams now (my new laptop came with one)  and as soon as she gets organized enough we're going to set things up so we can video chat with each other.

The day of Chet's memorial service we got home from it exhausted to the bone. All I could think of was how much I waned to sit in the big leather hug and zone out for awhile in front of the TV. I got to sit all of 15 minutes before the next disaster. A coyote came in the front yard and before we could stop him Tommy had dashed out the dog door and taken it on. He lost, and I got to do a panicked rush trip to the emergency pet hospital.

Tommy suffered a nasty gash in his side and toothmarks in his butt. Not much, really. It could have been a whole lot worse. He spent the night in the hospital, got his stitches, and  then I brought him home. He's just about completely healed now, and back to his old rascally trouble making self. I can tell he's learned nothing at all from this experience.

I had planned to continue journaling about the fair experience but it's kind of pointless now. So I will do a post about my own fair entries and how they did later this week, then move on to life as it happens.

I have been knitting. In fact, knitting is what has been keeping me sane.I hauled my knitting bag everywhere with me. Oddly, it helped me with all the deep emotion I've been going through. Very comforting in some strange way. My nephews were even teasing me about it. (Tyler: "I can't believe you're knitting! Do you knit everywhere???") I've been working on 2 projects that don't require much thought. A lace stole with a simple 4 row repeat, and the sweater for my son-in-law.

Though I'm not really a fan of hers, I think of what Elizabeth Zimmerman said: “Knit on, with confidence and hope, through all crises.” She definitely gave us a bit of wisdom there.